How much is an accounting practice worth in Australia? The client relationships that stay after the owner leaves set the price, not the office or the software.

The short answer

An Australian accounting practice is normally priced as a number of cents for each dollar of annual fees, and the number depends on how much of those fees will still be there once the owner has gone. The traditional benchmark was one dollar of price for each dollar of fees (one Australian business broker's 2024 guide; CPA Australia, 2025). Figures from a specialist accounting practice broker, quoted by CPA Australia in July 2025, put recent averages at about 113 cents in the dollar for metro practices with fees under $1 million and about 109 cents for regional practices, with 135 cents 'not uncommon' for metro practices above $1 million. The same 2024 broker guide says client mix, fee quality, location, size and payment terms can move a price by around 30 per cent either way from dollar for dollar, and that practices above $1 million in fees are generally valued on profitability rather than a fee multiple.

Those are brokers' observations, not laws and not valuations. A buyer is not buying fees. A buyer is buying the likelihood that clients keep paying, which depends on the relationships, the age and spread of the client base, who holds the relationships, and how the price is paid.

What the buyer is really paying for: relationships that can move

A practice owns little that a buyer cannot replace. Software, a leased fit-out and copies of documents the clients already hold are replaceable, and a broker quoted by CPA Australia in 2024 said buyers do not value software as such. What carries a price is the expectation that clients keep engaging the practice: a consultancy quoted in the same coverage described established relationships as where the real value lies, and a broker quoted in 2025 called the transferability of clients the biggest risk for a purchaser.

So the useful question about fees is how they recur, not how large they are. Annual tax returns and financial statements, business activity statements, bookkeeping, payroll and SMSF administration renew each year. Restructure projects, help with an ATO review and catch-up lodgments do not, and a buyer strips them out before applying any multiple. Brokers quoted by CPA Australia in 2025 say a sale to another accounting practice is the most common outcome.

Reading the client book: what a buyer asks for first

A buyer's first request is usually a client-by-client fee schedule, and what it shows drives most of the price. That 2024 broker guide and the broker commentary in CPA Australia point the same way: buyers prefer clients who are not concentrated near retirement, who pay on time and who buy advice as well as compliance, and the guide notes that an individual client with fewer than 10 years to retirement has a limited billable period. The evidence asked for:

• ·A fee schedule by client for three years, reconciled to the ledger and the bank, with recurring and one-off fees separated
• ·Client age and tenure: how many fee dollars come from clients near retirement
• ·Concentration: the share of fees from the largest client and the largest ten
• ·Fee composition: compliance, business activity statements, bookkeeping, SMSF administration and audit, advisory
• ·Clients won and lost over 24 months, and where new clients came from
• ·Who holds each relationship: the owner, a senior staff member, or several people (a broker quoted by CPA Australia in 2025 says clients with several touch points are stickier)
• ·Signed engagement letters, recent fee increases, and debtors and work in progress at the valuation date

Different kinds of practice price differently

Fees are not priced equally. A valuer quoted by CPA Australia in 2025 looks at the composition of fees and, in a New Zealand example, priced bookkeeping below business accounting and advisory. A consultancy quoted by CPA Australia in 2024 said a practice offering advice as well as compliance is much more attractive to a buyer, and that industry specialisation, such as medical practices, retail or trades, really maximises price, because a buyer can build services around a defined client group. The same valuer said metro practices attract higher offers because more buyers compete for them, one reason the averages above differ.

At the larger end the method changes. Above about $1 million in fees, the broker guide quoted above says practices are generally valued on profitability, and the specialist broker's 2024 sales data release said larger practices can be assessed on more attractive earnings multiples, without publishing one. An earnings multiple depends too heavily on the individual firm to quote a general figure, so the valuation rests on the earnings themselves: fees, less the cost of servicing them, less a market wage for every working partner.

Partner transition and how the price is paid

Much of the price is exposed to what happens in the year after settlement, so the payment structure is part of the value. The specialist broker's 2024 data, covering thirty of its own sales, put the most common retention level at 15 per cent, with a range from nil to 25 per cent: part of the price held back until the fees are shown to have stayed. The same headline price paid in full at settlement and with part of it at risk are different prices.

The seller's role matters as much as the figure. A 2019 sponsored broker feature in Accountants Daily said an owner's willingness to stay on for six to twelve months is important, and a consultancy quoted by CPA Australia in 2024 said practices where work has already moved to trusted staff who will join the buyer are more attractive.

Each client also has to be moved across. Item 6 of the Tax Practitioners Board's Code of Professional Conduct prohibits a tax practitioner from disclosing a client's affairs to a third party without the client's permission unless there is a legal duty to, and a buyer is a third party. Under the ATO's client-to-agent linking, each entity with an ABN other than a sole trader must itself nominate its new registered agent; the agent cannot do it for the client, and the nomination lapses after 28 days unless the agent has added the client or it is extended.

In a firm with several partners, a retiring partner's share is priced on the earnings tied to that partner's clients after a market wage for the work done, then read against the partnership or shareholders' agreement, which may fix a formula that overrides any valuation.

The standing deductions and risks

A practice has few hard assets, so its standing deductions are mostly obligations and dependencies that a buyer prices before agreeing a number.

• ·Registration: anyone providing tax agent services for a fee or other reward must, unless an exemption applies, be registered with the Tax Practitioners Board under the Tax Agent Services Act 2009, and where services are provided through a company or partnership, that entity must be registered. A buyer of the entity rather than the client book takes on the entity's history
• ·Professional indemnity insurance: the Board requires registered tax agents to hold cover that meets its requirements, including retroactive cover. Who bears claims from work done before settlement is a term to settle in writing
• ·Anti-money laundering: from 1 July 2026 AUSTRAC regulates accountants who provide professional designated services under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006, such as assisting with a transaction to sell, buy or transfer a company or trust. Whether a practice is caught depends on the services it provides, and a buyer will ask what putting compliance right would cost
• ·Income tied to a person or a licence: an SMSF must be audited each year by an SMSF auditor registered with ASIC, and financial advice income depends on an Australian financial services licence or authorisation under one. If the person or licence does not transfer, the fees may not either
• ·Records, systems and staff: a broker quoted by CPA Australia in 2025 warned of price reductions when records and systems need significant time and money to bring up to standard. Accrued staff leave has to be dealt with in the price

A worked example: fees for sale, earnings and the retention

Consider a hypothetical metro practice with one owner and four staff. Last year it billed $1,000,000, of which $120,000 was one-off work (a restructure project and help with an ATO review), leaving $880,000 of recurring fees. The owner will keep personal clients billing $60,000 a year, so the fees for sale are $820,000. A buyer prices them at an assumed multiple of 1.10 for illustration (110 cents in the dollar, in line with the averages quoted above): $820,000 x 1.10 = $902,000.

The buyer cross-checks against earnings. Servicing those clients costs $510,000 a year in staff and overheads, leaving $310,000 before any wage for the owner's role. A market wage to replace the owner's technical and management work is $190,000, so normalised earnings are $120,000, and the price is about 7.5 times those earnings ($902,000 divided by $120,000 is 7.52). That ratio is only what this price implies, not a market benchmark, but it prompts the question whether the earnings are as durable as the fees, which returns to client age, concentration and who holds the relationships.

Now the terms. Assume a 15 per cent retention, the most common level in the specialist broker's 2024 data: $902,000 x 15 per cent = $135,300 held back, and $766,700 paid at settlement. Assume also that the retention is reduced by the price attributable to fees lost in the following 12 months. If clients billing $41,000 (5 per cent of the fees sold) leave, the reduction is $41,000 x 1.10 = $45,100, so $90,200 of the retention is paid and the seller receives $856,900 in total, against $902,000 had no client been lost. Every figure here is illustrative, not a benchmark.

What a defensible accounting practice valuation file contains

Because broker multiples are averages across very different practices, the supportable position is won or lost in the evidence. The conclusion is a supportable range with the most supportable position concluded within it, and the file behind it typically holds:

• ·Three years of financial statements and year-to-date trading, reconciled to the practice management system and the bank
• ·The client-by-client fee schedule with recurring and one-off fees separated, plus client ages, tenure, concentration and composition
• ·Client wins and losses for 24 months, with reasons where known
• ·A normalisation schedule: a market wage for every working owner and partner, personal expenses, one-off items and the fees the seller will keep
• ·A staff schedule: roles, tenure, pay, accrued leave and who is expected to move
• ·The partnership, shareholders' or trust deed, and the proposed sale terms: retention, clawback, handover period and restraints
• ·Registrations and insurance: Tax Practitioners Board registration, the professional indemnity policy and its retroactive date, SMSF auditor and licence dependencies, and any AML/CTF obligations
• ·Comparable sales evidence where it can be sourced, with sensitivity analysis across the supportable range

When the number has consequences

A formal valuation becomes worth commissioning once the number has consequences someone else can test. For an accounting practice those include a sale or merger, where the buyer tests the fee schedule line by line; a partner retirement or buy-in, where the partnership deed and the valuation have to agree; family law matters, where the practice is an asset in a property settlement; and CGT events, including small business CGT concession claims under Division 152 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, where eligibility can turn on documented market values and the $6 million maximum net asset value test, which takes in connected entities. The standard applied is market value, the price a willing but not anxious buyer and seller would agree (Spencer v Commonwealth (1907)); the ATO's guidance is titled 'Market valuation for tax purposes'.

Oliver Group prepares independent valuations only. We are not a tax agent and do not give tax, legal or financial advice: your accountant and lawyer apply the valuation in their own fields. Reports follow the guidelines of APES 225 Valuation Services, and a report is not written to a predetermined number.

Oliver Group's fees are set by the annual turnover of the business: a Small Business Valuation is $1,495 + GST for turnover under $2 million, a Medium Business Valuation is $2,495 + GST for turnover between $2 million and $10 million, and a Large Business / Start-Up Valuation is $3,495 + GST for turnover over $10 million or for a start-up. A small-business draft is delivered in 2 business days and a medium-business draft in 3 business days; the delivery date for a Large Business / Start-Up Valuation is agreed before commencement. Delivery time starts once payment and all required information have been received. The fee is fixed in writing before work begins and never depends on the concluded value.